The game features the same premise as the original game, and involves controlling an army of worms and using a collection of eclectic weaponry such as bazookas, dynamite, grenades, cluster bombs, homing missiles, banana bombs and the infamous holy hand grenade.[2] These are among the basic weapons used to eliminate the opposing team(s) of worms. It features a completely new graphics system, going for a cartoon style, which has remained for the rest of the series.

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Game play is turn-based, with each team moving in sequence (which is determined randomly) across two-dimensional terrain. During a single turn, a team can only move one of its worms. Worms can crawl and jump, as well as (when the appropriate items are available) swing by ninja-rope, parachute, teleport, and bungee. The objective of a traditional match or campaign mission is to defeat all opposing teams by killing their worms.

Each worm begins the round with a specific amount of health (which is predefined by the chosen game options or by scripting in campaign levels, with 100 being the default). When hit with a weapon, the worm will lose health depending on the power of the weapon and the directness of the hit. A worm can be killed either by having its health reduced to zero or being knocked into the water around and below the level.[3]

Worms 2 was the first game in the Worms series to feature completely integrated local and online TCP/IP multiplayer in addition to the regular hotseat mode, which allows up to 6 players to compete. Online play is disabled in the GOG.com digital release of the game.

The game includes a wide variety of weapons, including melee, projectile, and explosive weapons, as well as air-strike-based attacks. Some are based on real-life arms, such as the shotgun, bazooka, and hand grenade. Others are more fanciful and cartoonish, such as the sheep, which serves as a mobile explosive.[4]

In a normal match, all teams begin with the same weapons, based on the chosen weapon set. Some weapons may only be available after a certain number of turns have passed. Depending on game options, additional weapons, such as mortars or cluster grenades, may randomly fall onto the terrain in air-dropped crates.

Additionally, super weapons will rarely fall in weapon crates. These weapons are often based on cartoonish themes (such as the Confused Sheep Strike) and usually devastating in power.

Worms 2 includes both weapon and option editors, each offering a very high level of control over many game-play and weapon settings. Option settings include worm retreat time, wind strength, fall damage and sudden death land sink rate. Weapon settings include weapon delay (how many turns must pass before the weapon becomes available), bullet count (the number of bullets fired per 'shot'), blast power, explosion bias and bullet spread.

Additional weapon and game play options can be tweaked with the use of third-party patch and configuration software. One example of this is a custom game-play option called Roping. With the use of a third party patch (S*natch's Worms Patch Library), players could play a style of game called Roping (the predecessor to Shoppa). In this style, players have turn time limits between 9 and 15 seconds, can only use the ninja rope (which is greatly enhanced by the Patch Library) to navigate around the terrain, and must use the bazooka, mines and grenades to inflict damage upon enemy worms.